User curated augmented reality art exhibitions

Creating mobile augmented reality applications to display gallery artworks or museum content is a well-established concept within the research community. However, the focus of these systems is generally technologically driven and primarily addresses the end user and not the views of the gallery or the original artist. In this paper we present the design and development of the mobile application ?Taking the Artwork Home?, which allows people to digitally curate augmented reality art exhibitions in their own homes. A research through design methodology was adopted so that we could more fully understand how the views of the gallery and artists impacted on the artifact design and therefore the user experience

The Everywhere Museum of Everything: the curatorship challenge, from cigital urban art to NFTs

This article focuses on the overproduction of aestheticised digital content, a testament to social, cultural or recreational experiences, paradoxically short-lived and forgotten. These public aestheticised digital records of social interactions, intellectual engagement or consumerist indulgence are uploaded onto social networks and represent not only a real and abundant ethnographic portrait of contemporaneity, which could be searchable by geography, demography or subject, but also acquire remarkable potential as raw material for creative and artistic research, remixing, digital archaeology or exhibition. From this point of view, their curation is justified. The Everywhere Museum of Everything is the designation given by the author to the augmented urban spaces, populated by these layers of original and remixed digital audio-visual information, interconnected by hashtags and geo-tags, which can be rendered visible through augmented reality tools, thus transforming any urban space into a digital gallery of their recent social, aesthetic or ethnographic history.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Live at LICA: Collection Access Via Augmented Reality - Research and Development Report

There is significant scope to improve access to museums collections, with almost half of the UK population not visiting a museum in 2012-2013. Augmented Reality provides new opportunities to create access to and deeper engagement with collections. The museums sector has been exploring its potential to some degree, but survey data suggests many more will do so in the next few years. To date, AR and mobile applications developed by the sector such as the Let's Explore and Museum of London Streetview apps - have been limited in scope. Academic Research projects in this area have not often been taken beyond initial user engagement studies and released publicly. AR sits in a distinct part of the virtuality continuum, which ranges from the completely real to the completely virtual. When deciding to deploy AR, there are a number of factors to consider right at the outset, including whether it will be available on a mobile device or wearable tech (eg headset), whether it is sensor or vision based and how the data will be stored and accessed. This project took place between April 2013 and May 2014. It involved the creation of an Android mobile application which enables users to view 2D images from the Peter Scott Gallery as though exhibited in a physical space, accessed from any locaton with internet connectivity. The research question was concerned with whether mobile augmented reality (MAR) could increase meaningful engagement with museums and art gallery collections. The project team adopted a methodology closely aligned with Research Through Design. They produced 5 digital versions of the prop type and these were developed with iterative participatory design. More than 80 users participated including gallery volunteers and staff, children from local schools and young people from local colleges.  The project team had to respond to several changes in personnel and technical challenges. This resulted in reallocated roles, increased development time, reduced content and reduced promotional activity. The budget was £96,840 but this did not include significant additional unbilled time given by the project team. As a result of the project, a free app was launched in the UK in May 2014 and in the USA in July 2014. It has been downloaded to date 45 times and remains accessible to the public. The software used is open source. A key goal for the arts partner going forward is to find resource to extend the content available. The content management system which is fully functional has been designed to enable this to happen in house. The project has generated insights concerning ethical use of data, backwards compatibility of devices, publication and copyright issues and the quality of digitised collection images

Recommendations for implementing VR and AR in Education, Art, and Museums

Artificial intelligence technologies are becoming more common, and schools, museums, and art exhibitions will need to alter their old methods of working and thinking processes to fully realize their potential. In an increasingly digital environment, incorporating VR and AR technology as well as wearable gadgets into various areas may help to increase participation. The strategic role and usage of VR and AR in influencing tourist experience at art galleries and museums, as well as its potential to improve education, needs to be explored in VR and AR in Education, Art, and Museums. This research provides some recommendations for museum supervisors, tour designers, academic software developers because it covers a wide range of topics such as digital training, digital heritage, and gaming

Art museums and the incorporation of virtual reality: Examining the impact of VR on spatial and social norms

Art museums implicate established spatial and social norms. The norms that shape these behaviours are not fixed, but rather subject to change as the sociality and physicality of these spaces continues to develop. In recent years, the re-emergence of virtual reality (VR) has led to this technology being incorporated into art museums in the form of VR-based exhibits. While a growing body of research now explores the various applications, uses and effects of VR, there is a notable dearth of studies examining the impact VR might be having on the spatial and social experience of art museums. This article, therefore, reports on an original research project designed to address these concerns. The project was conducted at Anise Gallery in London, United Kingdom, between June and July 2018 and focused on the multisensory, and VR-based, exhibition, Scents of Shad Thames. The research involved 19 semi-structured interviews with participants who had just experienced this exhibition. Drawing on scholarly literature that surrounds the spatial and social norms pertaining to art museums, this study advances along three lines. First, the research explores whether the inclusion of VR might alter the practice of people watching, which is endemic of this setting. Second, the research explores whether established ways of navigating the physical setting of art museums might influence how users approach the digital space of VR. Third, the research examines whether the incorporation of VR might produce a qualitatively different experience of the art museum as a shared social space

Exhibiting Mutator VR: Procedural Art Evolves to Virtual Reality

Organic Art (1987) was reincarnated as Mutator2 (2013) which evolved into Mutator VR: Mutation Space (2016). We describe the graphics and audio systems, particularly the procedural generation and visual effects, and their creative exploitation as an art installation. Mixed “real” and “unreal” features and effects, inspired by Surrealist art, create highly immersive psychedelic organic experiences. Interface simplicity and discoverability is critical for VR exhibitions; as is the balance between an experience constrained by artist's choices and a freer (but riskier) one with greater public choice. Public gallery installation of Mutator VR creates special challenges

Social Media and the Democratization of American Museums

The democratization of American museums has been accelerated by societal changes caused by the development of new, multiway channels of communication created by the Internet and social media. Social media is prompting public participa- tion which has led to a paradigm shift in museology towards public engagement. The rise of vernacular creativity, especially among the younger, digitally native generations who are “curating” their identities by replicating, manipulating and sharing culture on- line, challenges the authority of the museum and curator as arbiters of culture. This paradigm shift also broadens the definition of authenticity from the object to the au- thentic experience. This paper argues that museums have a responsibility to remain relevant and to model the use of new technologies in the service of public good and in the pursuit of democratic ideals. They can only do so through nimble experimentation with social media. An examination of the evolution of the museum’s role in American society is followed by an analysis of the impact of technology on museum practice and philosophy. The description of a number of case studies involving social media initia- tives by museums suggests that engaging the public in the curatorial process throughcrowd-sourced and crowd-curated exhibitions may be the key to museum sustain- ability. Finally, an outline of a social media campaign designed for an exhibition at the University of San Francisco’s Thacher Gallery, co-curated by the M.A. in Museum Studies Curatorial Practicum serves as a lesson in the use of the new media platform,Instagram